Obamacare Insurance Premiums Definitely On the Rise, New Study Shows

Post Date: September 1, 2016

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If a new study from the independent Kaiser Family Foundation is anything to go by, people will need to brace themselves for massive insurance premium increases under the Affordable Care Act. A quick examination of insurer plans indicates that steep premium increases have been requested for in 2017 in 14 major cities in the U.S. The request for premium increases have been slated to be nearly double of what was asked for this year. The average premium increase requests are slated to be around 10 percent.

It’s likely that the regulators and insurers will only decide final premium rates towards the end of the year for 2017, but the study corroborates the signs that consumers and the government are likely to pay higher insurance prices in several cities across the country. It appears that insurance companies are at a crossroads in terms of charges, so they are trying to cover their costs with these new price requests.

The projections made by the foundation are based on preliminary insurance rates filed with local state regulators. These rates remain subject to review by local and federal regulators before being passed to the people.

While it’s early days, Kaiser’s insurance premium projections will be closely monitored because data is currently only available for some states. The big states like Texas and Florida have been left out of the study for the moment because data hasn’t been made available yet.

The report indicates that consumers may want to compare between different providers to mitigate these insurance premium hikes. But they must be prepared to switch insurers and even their doctors to avoid burdening their wallets.

The Kaiser Family Foundation studied the most popular low-cost silver plans to calculate insurance premium rise requests. A clearer picture will arise towards the closing months of the year when the presidential election heats up. Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton wants to build on the plan, while Republican nominee Donald Trump wants to get rid of it. Since inception, Obamacare has reduced the rate of uninsured people to a low 9 percent.